#16 Eighth Doctor Adventures: Situation Vacant

Babblesphere was a bit disappointing, but so far overall, my time with a personal Randomoid Selectortron has been satisfying. It now brings me to:

Eighth Doctor Adventures: Situation Vacant

Starring: Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor
Format: one full-cast CD (or download) in two half-CD episodes
Silly? Slightly. A pair of tonally typical short Doctor Who adventures make up the bulk of the story, but they are framed in a sillier than usual context.
Standalone? This story advances the arc of the fourth season of Eighth Doctor Adventures, but can be listened to on its own if you don't mind a dangling thread at the end. The details of earlier events aren't important within this story.
Recommended? Yes, but particularly in the context of the Eighth Doctor Adventures as an ordered arc.

My reactions to this story contain spoilers for itself and for Death in Blackpool.

Before listening

This will be the first time I've listened to an eighth Doctor story for this blog. The eighth Doctor appeared in a TV movie which was an American co-production. Many of the events of that movie aren't entirely under the BBC's copyright and thus can't necessarily be referred to in other Doctor Who media. The eighth Doctor himself, however, has appeared in many novels and audios, and got to come back for TV a few years ago to do a regeneration flashback for his successor. That appearance has reference to his companions from Big Finish audios, including Lucie Miller.
I have heard this story before. I think I only heard it once, as I don't think I ever went back to relisten to the fourth season of Eighth Doctor Adventures. It is an important episode to the season arc and, from what I recall, events near the end of the episode don't make sense without knowing what's come before and don't pay off until a few episodes later. The most important connecting element is that in the previous episode, Death in Blackpool, long-time companion Lucie Miller has angrily decided to stop traveling with the Doctor, for fairly complicated and justifiable reasons.
The main action of this story is a job interview process for a new companion to replace Lucie. This is not how the Doctor normally does things, and I remember the twist about why it's happening. I recall it being a rather silly episode with a lot of gags about business speak being applied to Doctor Who situations, but I might be confusing it with other Eighth Doctor Adventures in that regard.
I am looking forward to relistening to this story. I am fairly sure that I remember enough of Death in Blackpool I don't need to back up and relisten to that first.

After listening to episode 1 of 2

One thing I hadn't remembered was that this was a two-episode story on one disc, not a single unbroken disc-long episode.
Another thing I hadn't remembered was how many cast members were all active in the story at once. The Doctor's auditioning four candidates in a hotel holding a science conference. Two scientists at the conference are also major characters, the hotel manager appears several times, and an alien has some spoken lines in an untranslated language. Fortunately, the voice casting (and possibly a forced but tolerable accent for the hotel manager) makes the characters fairly easy to differentiate, and they are split up so that most individual scenes only involve two or three characters at a time.
The Doctor obviously doesn't know what's printed on the agenda for his own interview meeting and has to ask candidates for it. The exercise on the morning agenda is the investigation of some disappearances at the conference; mysteriously, whoever wrote the agenda knew about these disappearances before anyone present at the conference found out. The companion candidates attempt to solve the mystery, poorly, and endanger the life of another investigator who could possibly have solved it independently. The mystery is eventually solved, and the Doctor eliminates one candidate leaving three.
The episode ends with the revelation of the afternoon agenda: now there's apparently some sort of monster (not fully described in this episode) attacking London, and once again the agenda-writer seems to have had advance knowledge.
I had expected an hour-long listen today, but my general policy for this blog is to break between half-disc episodes even when I wasn't expecting an episode break. I am very eagerly looking forward to the continuation.

After listening to episode 2 of 2

The initial monster is dealt with quickly, which made me think for a moment that the cliffhanger might have been a bit cheap, but the monster is just the first, most immediate facet of a larger problem.
There is a bit of Agatha Christie-esque twist: while none of the candidates are responsible for any of the main mysteries of the episode, every candidate has something different to hide. Despite this, after all the cards are have been laid the table and resolved, the story does end with the Doctor picking up someone new for his travels. There are some nicely laid misdirects about his choice.
A big thread is left dangling: the identity of the person who actually placed the ad is not revealed within this story, although there are clues about their motivation and the Doctor correctly infers that they're another time traveler. A scene that I had remembered as being in this story actually appears in another one. That scene was the reason I thought, going in, that this story strongly required Death in Blackpool. In fact, if you don't mind the leftover plot thread at the end, it can be listened to on its own without any trouble. (The eventual resolution of that plot thread does depend on Death in Blackpool and on the stories establishing Lucie's motivation therein.)
The job interview premise could lend itself to an entirely farcical Doctor Who, but the story never goes in that direction. Most of the action is straightforward adventure of a typical Doctor Who tone, and past the first couple scenes of the first episode there aren't any scenes I'd describe as primarily comedy. The performances and pacing are good, and the twists regarding the candidates are all very distinct from each other and entertaining. There is a good reason, realized by the Doctor within the story, why none of the people who showed up to the interview are what they seem, so the story doesn't rely on a great deal of coincidence.
The download of Situation Vacant includes over fifteen minutes of behind-the-scenes interview content, putting it over the length of an actual CD. (If you buy the CD directly from Big Finish, you also get the download in your account, so you don't have to choose between the bonus content or the physical disc.) Writer Eddie Robson specifically had The Apprentice (the UK version) in mind when he came up with the idea for the script. Since I haven't seen that show myself, I don't know whether there are obvious jokes planted for listeners who have.
I enjoyed listening to Situation Vacant. It works best in the context of the Eighth Doctor Adventures as a whole, since the dangling plot thread involves elements going as far back as the first season, and I recommend it in that context, rather than as a disc to single out and listen to for the first time out of order.